Friday, August 24, 2012

Guest Post: Buckwheat Pancakes

Today I'm excited to introduce to you my little blonde stunner friend, Sarah. Sarah and I could (...and do) spend hours discussing how best to cook quinoa, where to buy homemade peanut butter and which tiny Chinese takeaway makes the best dumplings near our uni. While we should be concentrating in class, we instead swap recipes and have in-depth discussions about any good healthy meals we made over the weekend. Often I find myself peering over her shoulder, glancing longingly at her home made lunch with serious food envy, as she munches away on another great combo she has going on in her lunchbox. Which is exactly why I asked her to do a guest blog for you guys - Sarah always has the most creative and delicious ways to incorporate healthy food into her everyday life and she always has something new to teach me about nutrition and cooking.... And so here it goes, feel free to dribble on the screen as you read -

When most people think about pancakes they think about thick
fluffy American pancakes dribbled with maple syrup or their thinner French
cousin, crepes filled with insides of banana, Nutella and ice cream. They are
simply vessels for more delicious (but not necessarily nutritious!) flavours.

I recently started experimenting with using tastier and more
wholesome ingredients to create a guilt free delicious breakfast treat. These
pancakes need very little additives, as they are so tasty by themselves. I’ve used
almonds, quinoa and buckwheat as my dry ingredients in this recipe – but you
can really extend it to any grain or nut meal – think ground pecans, oat flour,
rice flour – whatever you like the flavour of! Add a squished banana, some
coconut and maybe some cinnamon and you are ready to go! Its also nice to mix
in some cut up dried fruit like figs or dates that go delicious and caramel-y
as you cook the pancakes.

You can really adapt the recipe to all dietary needs – its
gluten free as long as you don’t put any whole wheat or oat flour in, vegans
can omit the egg if they need as the banana keeps the mixture together pretty
nicely and if you are going sugar free and cutting out fruit you can take out
the banana.